Taliban men carry a man in the air between them, with one carrying each leg and others his arms. As a crowd stands around, figures dressed in black hit him on his back and legs with a stick.
Footage of the incident shown on TV includes the ticker: ‘He was a gay boy from Kabul’.
Meran Ahmad sent this clip to me, captioning it simply: ‘This is how the Taliban are treating LGBT people’.
He is one of around a thousand people identified as being particularly at risk in Afghanistan due to their sexuality or gender identity. They are desperate to escape to a country where they can live without hiding, and where they don’t fear being executed simply for who they are.
After the Taliban took control of the country last summer, Meran, who is bisexual, fled to stay with relatives in Kabul because his family said it wasn’t safe for him to remain in his village.
Last year, a Taliban judge said in an interview with German newspaper Bild that there should only be two punishment for homosexuality: stoning or being crushed under a wall.
The threat is all pervasive for Meran, who says it is too dangerous for him to have any same sex relationship, which he would like to be able to do. ‘If they find out, they will kill me and the other guy as well,’ he told Metro.co.uk.
‘I’m having so much depression and anxiety and I’m scared,’ he said. ’I’m losing myself, I’m losing my soul with wondering what to do – how can I seek help?’
He studied business and speaks English well, and before the Taliban takeover worked for a company supporting the US with a good salary, But now, he does not have a job because he says anyone not conforming to Islamist ideology or appearing different struggles to find work.
‘If I don’t leave this place, in my lifetime they will kill me. I know this,’ he said.
Meran, whose name has been changed to protect his identity like those of all still in Afghanistan who are quoted in this piece, wants to move to any country where he can live freely, such as the UK, America, Canada or Australia – ‘somewhere I can raise my voice’.
‘I’m just tired of this country because no one respects us. An LGBT person is like a cancer in this society. I want to be proud of my identity – but now I’m scared, I hide everything.’
He said he wants to hear others in the global LGBTQ+ community speak up in solidarity, and for there to be more support to evacuate people most at risk.
One man working tirelessly to try and help people like Meran is Nemat Sedat, a gay Afghan now living in California who set up the non-profit Roshaniya. He has compiled the list of people in need of evacuation, and is trying to help those identified reach safety.
So far, he says the number of LGBTQ+ Afghans resettled by the UK is in the low sixties – but he believes his entire list could be absorbed by even just one country, though he is lobbying governments across Europe and North America.
It is upsetting to him to see how welcoming countries have been to Ukrainian refugees, setting up special schemes to help them settle, when the Afghans he tries to help are often rejected.
‘The world is basically not caring about LGBT people in Afghanistan,’ he said.
It’s not that he wants the world to close the door to Ukrainians, but that he would like to see the same help extended to Afghans – particularly as the US and UK bear responsibility for their role in the country over the last 20 years.
‘People are losing hope and but there’s really no exits,’ he said. What he wants to see if a pathway to help LGBTQ+ Afghans seek refuge, as even if they manage to secure a passport and visas for themselves at great expense, he says people often end up coming back to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries because they run out of resources.
Another person desperate to leave Afganistan is Anoush, a transgender woman living in Balkh province.
She said she always felt different even as a child, preferring to play with girls and stay at home helping her mum cook. Others at school would mock her and call her ‘Izak’ which she explained is a slang word meaning neither male or female.
Life was difficult because she was different, and things did not improve when she began to explore her sexuality as a teenager.
Anoush, 22, said she repeatedly suffered sexual violence, including after once going to meet a boy and finding out that he actually had three friends at home. She told how she was ‘raped, humiliated and beaten with severe physical violence’ before being dumped at the side of a road where she spent the night with animals before returning home injured to criticism from family about where she had been.
But things have become even worse since the Taliban came to power, imposing their rigid brand of Islam on the country.
She told how the Taliban stopped her outside once and demanded to check her phone, becoming angry at finding western music and videos to the point they smashed her phone.
‘I am like a prisoner at home,’ Anoush said. ‘I can not go out because I am afraid the Taliban will kill me for being transgender.’
She also told how she cannot work due to not conforming and is under pressure to marry a woman. ‘My family insults me,’ she added. ‘They say, “Why are you like this? Why are you not like a real man?”
A practising Muslim, Anoush wanted to go to the mosque and pray during Ramadan but was told she was not allowed inside because ‘this is a real place for pure Muslims’.
She has attempted suicide several times and believes there is no hope for her in Afghanistan.
But she has still joined with other young Afghans to launch the Behesht Collective, a group aiming to provide support to other LGBTQ+ people facing persecution, both with practical support and by challenging religious extremism and intolerance.
Halim, a lawyer who is still in Afghanistan, explains that many LGBTQ+ people seeking to leave the country made a living selling sex or dancing at weddings before the Taliban takeover.
But now, almost all their clients are ‘hiding or not ready to have sex due to fear of Taliban punishment’.
They added: ‘The job opportunities are very limited even for the general population. People who have jobs are not going to give them to LGBTQs because of stigma and discrimination in Afghan society.’
Since the Taliban gained control of Kabul, their office has been searched four times as well as their house – but they managed to escape punishment so far after destroying all data related to helping those of marginalised sexuality or gender identity.
Meanwhile, another on Nemat Sedat’s list is Giti Mehr, 27, who is non-binary and in a relationship with a bisexual man.
They studied medicine but also cannot find work due to their sexuality – and want to escape to Canada and be able to marry their partner.
After meeting on Facebook five years ago, they began a close relationship three years ago but have had to keep it secret from others.
‘If the Taliban find out that we are LGBT, they will put us under the wall, or they will cut off our heads and destroy us,’ they said.
‘Some LGBT friends whose identities were revealed were arrested and taken to the police station, where they were brutally tortured and raped by the group, and after being released they suffered mental problems and they were taken to hospitals, where they were identified and trapped in Kabul.
‘We are in a situation where we are like birds in a cage and I want to move to our dream country, Canada, as soon as possible and get married there.’
Since we first spoke, Giti messaged again to say that family members had overhead them speaking to their partner and threatened to hand them over to the Taliban, before throwing them out.
Their partner Hamid, 53, said he was frustrated by the lack of help for LGBTQ+ Afghans.
‘Currently, the most vulnerable group in the world is the LGBT of Afghanistan, who are in danger of death at any moment’, he said. ‘Why are they not materially and spiritually assisted and transferred?
‘In Afghanistan, LGBT people are even more vulnerable than women, as they cannot even carry the family’s necessities from the market to home.
‘LGBT people have the right to freedom, the right to travel, the right to life and the right to express their feelings.’
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